Previews

Blue Dragon

Microsoft Game Studios has brought together the talents of a role-playing game all-star team to create Blue Dragon.

Spiffy:

Akira Toriyama's character designs and Hironobu Sakaguchi's game designs are a potentially winning combination.

Iffy:

Not many details at the moment, so we don't know much about the combat system, characters, or storyline.

When Microsoft announced that Hironobu Sakaguchi's development house, Mistwalker, would be working on three exclusive Xbox 360 games, owners of Microsoft's latest console that also happened to be fans of traditional Japanese RPGs rejoiced. Many attribute the lack of sales for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console in Japan to the lack of games of this type, and who better to develop them than the father of Final Fantasy? Well, it only got better when renowned artist and creative mind Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball and designer/illustrator behind the Dragon Quest series, was added to the team. Once the gameplay was covered and the art was addressed, all that was left was the music, and another Final Fantasy notable, Nobuo Uematsu, was called in to compose Blue Dragon's soundtrack. RPG enthusiasts can barely wait, and at E3 2006, the first details were revealed by Microsoft.

I was shown a brief trailer for the game, which depicted the main character, a fiery young lad named Shu, defiant and full of piss and vinegar, traveling across a world terrorized by a malicious clockwork army of pot-bellied robots. Thanks to Toriyama's artwork, these villainous constructs were almost as endearing as they were menacing, in the style of Hayao Miyazaki. Shu's method of transportation is a fish-shaped flying machine, almost like a yellow submarine with a dorsal fin and open canopy.

The mixture of magic and technology is inherent in the game world, with buildings and entire cities constructed out of crude steel girders fastened by altogether far too many rivets. On the other hand, there is a primitive town, where the denizens draw power from a windmill and live a simple life in their circular homes built of mud or clay. I was particularly interested in the layout of the town. It was built on the outer rim of a deep canyon, with the individual buildings attached to the rocky face of the sheer cliffs surrounding the desert below. A series of ramps are carved into these same cliffs, and additional suspension bridges connected the community. The realistic water effects we found in an underground cavern level illustrated beautifully the contrast between ultra-realistic, lifelike backgrounds and Toriyama's gorgeous anime character models.

We got a few insights into how the combat would work without actually being shown the fighting first hand. Each of the various characters you'll meet and eventually recruit into your party are adept at shadow magic. This shadow magic system allows a character to summon a shadowy spirit that embodies their personality and attributes. Shu, for example, is brave and pure of heart, and can bring forth a dragon spirit. His friend and advisor Jiro, constantly thinking, can summon a wiry minotaur. Other shadowy summons will include a griffon, a bat-man beast, and a wolfman. These spirits will have different attributes, powers, and spells associated with them.

Few other details could be squeezed out of Microsoft. There won't be random battles since you'll see enemies onscreen and possibly be able to avoid them. Characters will have the RPG standard attributes of HP and MP, but they'll also collect gold and medals to both purchase items and accumulate rare items. While we'll have to wait for next year to play Blue Dragon, we'll be sure to keep a close eye on the Japanese release, which should come just in time for this year's holiday season. After giving Microsoft some time to recover from a hectic E3, we'll be in touch with Artoon and Ensemble Studios for an update on what may be an exciting role-playing game.